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words // Nick DePaula:
While it might be under the radar to most, Virgin’s recently emerging Virgin Mega app could possibly be influencing and impacting the purchasing experience for Nike launches in the near future.
As detailed by Virgin founder and five times-over billionaire Richard Branson on the company’s website, Nike just acquired the app.
To this point, Virgin Mega was a 2 year-old app born from an idea by Virgin Mobile’s then-head of marketing Ron Faris. The app launched the Mega Line, which is “focused on building unusual and gamified mobile shopping experiences for millennials,” according to Branson. It allows customers to interact with games and jump above others also waiting in line, improving their position during sought after launches.
Like, say, sneaker launches on a Saturday morning.
How might the current team of 12 people at Virgin Mega assigned to developing and evolving the concept impact Nike going forward? That remains to be seen, though one might project and guess that maybe Nike will incorporate a series of games of skill or knowledge to allow for the brand’s most die-hard fans to leap to the top of the line for limited launches and coveted releases.
While details are scarce for now, Nike and the Virgin Mega app team will be joining forces, collectively bringing ideas together in the brand’s quest to move beyond the bot-ridden launch process of recent times.
Going forward, Ron Faris and his team will launch a new “digital innovation studio” in New York, where they’ll “invent and incubate next generation mobile experiences.” Stay tuned for more on how the Mega Line app acquisition might impact our Nike purchasing experience ahead.
